There is currently very great interest in reducing power consumption in electronic devices, particularly portable electronic devices. One source of power consumption is processing circuitry.
It is generally undesirable to have processing circuitry operating at full speed and full power irrespective of processing load. It is generally desirable to match the processing power with the processing load so that less power is consumed.
One solution is dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). The processing circuitry is arranged so that it can operate at one of a plurality of different power consumption levels. Each power consumption level has its own processing frequency and voltage. The power consumption level that has the lowest power consumption but is still capable of handling a processing load is chosen for use.